I think we're gonna go and cap it off
it's been steaming for a few minutes now.
All right, she's hot. Let's go with it.
-Slide it on up a notch. -All right.
Here you go, man, you need some paste over yonder?
-Yeah. -All right, there you go.
Y'all got enough over yonder?
Money, money, money.
Somebody's coming across the bridge.
[man 1 speaking]
[moonshiner] son of a bitch.
[narrator] in franklin county, virginia,
josh, tickle, and the laws make their first run of the season...
On foot.
I thought when he was behind with a damn camera,
I thought, it was the law.
That's why it took me so long to slow down,
you were right on my heels, man.
Did you make it? Could you tell if anybody got away?
- [cameraman] I just ran. -Just ran.
It's an unwritten rule for moonshiners.
When you get raided,
it's every man for himself.
It's on me to get away it's on my buddies to get away.
Right now, I'm just gonna take my time,
try to work my way back up a little bit further.
Gotta sit in these woods,
'cause I can't get out on the main roads or anything yet,
because they might be waiting for me.
I don't wanna get turned around here.
And I think we'll pick up this little trail right here.
It should keep us in the direction we wanna go.
We stay in the woods,
we just keep humping it
until we get back to the shop.
Take us a little bit of time,
but I think it's best to do that
instead of trying to get out to the main road
and catch a ride
or call anybody to come and get us.
A lot of times they'll get on the main roads
on a straightaway and they'll park a car.
If you try to cross that hot top road,
then they'll nail your butt.
I just hope my buddies got away.
We lost all that money, but I don't care about the money,
as long as nobody goes to jail.
[country music playing]
that's howard.
What do you say, tim?
Man, I'm glad you're here.
I need some help. We gotta make us some gasohol man.
Some what?
Some gasohol.
[narrator] in culpeper, virginia,
after a cyber-attack shut down a major east coast gas pipeline,
tim turns to a backwoods hack of his own.
You saw that long line of people waiting for gas.
Yeah, I've seen it, but I figured that's for lottery or something.
No, no, no, no, no, there's no gas down there.
People waiting so when that tanker truck comes they gonna get it.
[tim smith] we're in a major gas shortage on the east coast.
I think there's gonna be a need for what they call gasohol,
which is a combination of high ethanol moonshine mixed with gasoline.
I thought you gave me a call to make some shine.
How the hell you gonna propose we make gas.
You seen at the gas pump when you go there
-and it says 10% ethanol? -Yeah.
They adding a 10% of moonshine into it. That's what that is.
[narrator] from the moment the internal combustion engine was connected to wheels,
the search was on for a fuel to provide the most power and efficiency.
Two leaders quickly emerged.
Gasoline and corn based ethanol.
Both fuels remained popular until 1909,
when the discovery of vast oil fields in texas
led gasoline to dominate the market.
But it was ultimately prohibition
and the ban on all alcohol production.
That sounded the final death knell for ethanol as fuel.
Ethanol remained a footnote in history,
until the gas crisis of the 1970s put ethanol back on the table
as a means of stretching the limited supply of gasoline.
Today, most gasoline we purchase is blended with 10% ethanol known as e10.
And some cars with the flex-fuel designation
can run on a mix as high as 85% ethanol, sold as e85.
What's the proof on this gonna be?
-How high we get it? -As high as we can.
We gotta bag up some corn.
I wanna start making some batches in these trash cans here
and we gonna make some high test moonshine.
-You in? -I'm down with always down.
[tim] when you go to the gas station,
the gas pump has a mixture that is 10% ethanol,
90% gasoline and that's what we use every day.
Hey, howard, you ready?
I was born ready.
[tim] the goal here is to find the highest percentage
of ethanol to actually put in a combustible engine.
What do you want filling? About three-quarters of the way up?
[tim] if you can carry it, fill it up.
I got a bad back, you carry.
Oh!
I need to run a little research and development first
because there's different engines out there.
We have fuel injection engines,
we also have engineering has been done to engines
to make 'em more fuel efficient.
[howard] hell, I ain't gonna be able to carry this nowhere.
[tim] I'm gonna cut it off.
I don't know if it's gonna work.
But first step we just got to make a basic mash
just like we were gonna make moonshine to drink.
Damn, tim, I've only been here five minutes, I'm already a mess.
After about two weeks, you'll be looking like me.
Slim and trim?
That's it, man.
Tim fonda workout.
[howard] now, take it easy, old buddy.
Like a carton of eggs I'm delicate.
[tim] you know, today there are people lining up trying to get gasoline,
but a moonshiner can make his own.
[both grunting]
[tim] oh, man, we got to get you in shape.
[howard] I told you, I am a shape, I'm round.
We can grow our own food, we can make our own alcohol,
and we can make our own gasoline.
Here, at the farm, we're a moonshine distillery.
We got a 4,000 gallon still inside
that we're running the main brand here,
you know, climax is our main brand.
You know, we don't wanna interfere with that,
we don't wanna stop anything.
So, I think we'll go back to the woods with this,
you know, do the moonshine way.
Well, we gotta get the water hose.
Put some water.
-And the hose, we gonna suck... -Put the grain.
And we're gonna pull out of this creek?
Hey, there are fishes in there.
-So, it's gotta be good water. -[howard laughing]
this is a lot of wildlife.
So, it's not bad for you, it can't be.
Just a lot of urine and feces, love it.
But we're not making moonshine to drink.
We making moonshine to put it in a tank.
[howard] power is live.
Something's coming, there you go.
-Get some of that corn. -[howard] all right.
[tim] get some of that sugar right there.
-Half and half. -Half and half coming in.
It's like an arnold palmer. Half and half.
Man, tim, it's crazy we even got a gas shortage, old buddy.
Well, when I was a kid, we had the same scenario,
and you was limited, how much gas you could get.
You could only get $2.
-Back then-- -they'd do this then too.
Yeah. Back then, a whole lot of guys did that.
The bootleggers didn't have no problem with gas.
-Was thinking when you were talking. -It was--.
Was thinking if it happens like the great depression.
No, now the great depression, that's my dad's time. That's way back then.
Did they have gas back then?
They didn't have to need no gas, they had horses.
-They had to feed them corn. -[howard laughing]
so, corn makes the world go around.
Corn went straight to the horse.
Now, we make the corn to make gasoline to go to the motorized horse.
All right, get that yeast over there.
Oh, yeah.
Here comes that activator.
Split it up between them.
Put a little bit in this and a little bit in that.
It's a shame, we got to turn it into something
so high proof, we can't enjoy it.
[tim laughs]
-all right, I think we're good. -She's blended good.
All right, howard, close this up.
Close up shop.
Jerry, let's try to get this bad baby fixed.
We have our new core?
We got our new core.
I got her to burn, what do you think?
Damn, I hope it does, brother.
I don't wanna blow my damn self up no more.
[narrator] in haywood county, north carolina,
after an explosion derailed their first attempt
at building a wooden still pot,
mike and jerry start over from scratch.
We're making a still out of a charred wood barrel.
Hopefully, it's gonna transfer the age flavor
into a clear alcohol which is what we're wanting.
Best of both worlds.
Now, this still amazes me man.
-Keep that for a souvenir. -A-ha
we are trying to build another core.
What happened last time,
someone gonna like to blow it up
and blow my damn head out.
I'm gonna solder it from the inside.
Damn, oh god, oh.
Barrel blowed up with alcohol in it.
[jerry] there was alcohol vapor in this barrel,
you can't put fire to a barrel
that's got alcohol vapors in it.
Putting some water in this barrel
to try and get all the alcohol vapors out.
So that, we can at least put a fire to it
without blowing ourselves up.
I tell you what man, I'm a little damn
gun shy of this barrel.
That's got to help it some.
Put that fire to it and see what happens.
So, we got to take them precautions.
I ain't fixin' to get my eyes burned up again.
Light it up, jerry.
Let's see what happens here.
We're gonna put a fire in there
just to see if it's gonna burn.
Bang!
-You got me. -No flames.
That's a good thing.
Means we are ready to put this core in and solder it up.
Let's get something accomplished.
You know, me and jerry, we done had a tough start to our season.
We lost a lot of liquor.
We're broke and
we ain't got nothing started yet.
We'll see how she's gonna fit up here.
Oh, yes.
You know, this still should have been done by now.
I feel like I'm spinning my wheels.
We've got to get this thing in the woods
and get some liquor making.
Screwing down nice and tight here.
Ain't it?
The bottom side done,
we'll be ready to roll to the woods.
You know, this barrel we're using
it's gonna be both our mash barrel and our still pot.
We're gotta make sure, we've got a way to access
and clean this thing out
and get our materials into this barrel.
So, we're gonna cut about a 4-inch hole in the top of it.
There we go.
This hole right here is actually going to be
our cap, where our alcohol gonna condense
and work over to our condenser.
Also, it's gonna serve as our port to get our ingredients in
and get it started up,
because we got a mash in inside this barrel.
Probably, the smallest damn cap in history.
With this cap built, it fits like a glove.
I'll be surprised
if we even had to put any paste around it.
It's one hell of a unique cap, ain't it.
Damn right. It'll work.
Now that we've got our still built,
all me and jerry's got to do is figure out
how in hell we're gonna put a fire under this damn thing,
without burning the wood up
and make damn sure we don't blow ourselves up no more.
We got it, we got it ready to heat now.
We just need a way to heat it.
Not in the last 2-3 hours, nobody at all?
There's no way you can check to see
if the feds have brought anybody in for me and give me a callback.
You know, we got connections all over the county.
First thing, I did was make a couple phone calls,
trying to find out what's going on.
Holler back at me, all right?
Can you bring anybody in up at the county jail.
Now, I tried to call josh, I tried to call tickle.
I don't have brian's number.
No answer.
He and I we made it back to the shop,
but tickle, josh, brian,
you know, I'm really concerned about them.
I hope the feds ain't got them.
It's obviously something went wrong,
you know, we don't know what.
It's time to take a drink, my nerves are torn to pieces.
You the first one spotted them.
I heard you holler someone's coming
-across the bridge. -I knew in my head,
I had the feeling we got out of the truck, what did I tell you?
I said, here me, I got a bad feeling.
-I don't know why. -[speaking indistinctly]
man, what the hell.
I had the feeling we got out of the truck, what did I tell you?
I said, here me, I got a bad feeling.
-I don't know. -[speaking indistinctly]
man, what the hell.
I know, man!
-God! -Damn thing!
Yeah, it is good see you.
You could plan all [beep]
what you know, I had to find my way back, man.
Yeah, look at that, look at that, what are you talking about?
When I looked up and these guys was hollering, "freeze".
First thing that went through my mind was,
I ain't going back to jail.
You got a shot to liquor around here or something.
-We might got some of that. -I need one of them.
We've been talking to tickle for the past couple years.
We've been working together.
We've been drilling in his head,
how to get away.
What to do if you get raided.
Tickle you got away.
Evidently, the stuff that we put in his head,
he listened and he listened real well.
I know you was on the, sort of, the outside,
but josh and brian was in that middle,
right behind me.
-Right in that hole. -Yeah, they was hung.
They was tied up and a guy, ran by me.
-He was focused. -He done zoomed in on them.
Didn't even look over our way.
He never even turned towards us.
All I can say is if one of them did get caught,
our first run of the damn season,
bail money ain't gonna be easy to come by.
-Oh, oh, oh. -Oh.
-This, he gotta sandwich. -He gotta sandwich.
You were at the store.
-Ah! -I'd like it to pass it to you.
Good to see you.
It is glad to see somebody I know.
Oh, my god.
Where's joshua?
-Don't know, now. -I don't know.
Close the damn door.
Kinda damn nerve-racking, ain't it?
Pretty good looking shop, ain't it.
It is.
Looks like they've got plenty of stuff to work with in here.
Oh, my gosh, yeah.
Today, here at this metal shop,
we're actually gonna build, what we call a rocket elbow.
That's where we're gonna heat our wooden barrel for our still.
Let's go in here and see if we can find michael.
-I'll show you around a little bit. -Right.
How's it going, jerry?
Been doing good, man.
-How you? -You're in town.
Yeah, man.
Mike, this is mike.
You know, this metal shop here that we're at today,
it's pretty special to me.
I worked here for almost 13 years.
We've got a little project we're working on here.
Me and mike's gonna build a rocket elbow
and so basically we're needing some
4 x 4 square tubing,
and then our legs we'll find some
inch and a half, inch and a quarter.
So, what we'd like to do is put some, like, three-inch circles here,
maybe some four-inch circles on the bottom,
where we just weld on to keep it from sinking up in the mud.
We can do it.
Do you use that plasma cutter? Does it still burn?
You know, if we use the normal propane burner on a wooden barrel,
I think it will just catch fire and burn.
Rocket elbow, what it's gonna do is
it's gonna be able to heat this core
from the inside out.
[narrator] a rocket stove burns
wood at extremely high temperatures
with near total combustion and almost no smoke.
The secret to its efficiency lies in its elbow design,
which draws a large volume of oxygenated fresh air through its intake tube,
and into direct contact with the burning fuel.
As heat from the fire rises into the heat pipe,
a strong upward draft is created,
causing more air to be pulled into the intake pipe.
Its name comes from the rocket sound caused by the air
quickly rushing through the intake tube
and stoking the flames.
We're gonna get the cutting, how about that.
[jerry] sounds good.
We're cutting out all of our flanges
and our feet for our stand
to actually put our rocket burner on.
That's what this plasma cutter is here for.
That beats the heck out of a grinder
and a cutting torch...
-You ain't kidding. -It certainly does.
The circles we're gonna cut out today.
Basically, some bigger circles for the feet
to set on the ground,
the other one's gonna be to help support the barrel.
The plasma cutter is phenomenal, it's awesome.
It makes short work of anything,
where it would take us half a day or a whole day to do.
It takes three minutes.
This barrel, it's actually, it's gonna just sit on the stand.
Then we'll put our legs on here.
That's where our barrel's gonna sit.
[jerry] this design we're using in this rocket elbow,
basically it just works on old technology
and most people call it the chimney effect.
So, everybody knows that heat rises.
So, if you get a fire built
and you channel it in one direction,
it has nowhere else to go but up,
it actually creates a vacuum.
Well, that vacuum is gonna actually add oxygen
to a fire and make it hotter.
So, there we go, there's our burner.
Our wood feed here,
while this gonna be our fresh air in come,
our actual flame and our heat will take place right here.
It will travel through the tube
and then up to the flue.
And mike is working on the frame,
we will be making liquor before we know it.
You know, I'm a welder myself.
I'm no stranger to working in a metal shop.
You know, it feels good to be able to put hands on
and cut stuff, fit stuff and get it all welded up.
Jerry, I hope this rocket elbow
does what we think it will, buddy.
Man, I have a good feeling about it.
This kinda reminds me a lot of our column still,
you know, it's something that's never been done before,
at least not that we know of.
Park it.
I think we're better to set her on the legs, ain't we?
All right.
You know, I am damn well hoping this works.
I know it's gonna get hot, it's gonna burn.
But I'm worried we gonna burn something down.
That son of a bitch ought to burn hotter than a nanny goat
in a pepper patch picking six rows at a time.
That's pretty damn hot, son.
The next step, all we gotta do
is to set this thing up on the stand,
mash it in and we're done.
We're ready for the season.
[mike laughs]
ah-ha.
All right.
-All right, howard. -All right.
Going in the woods man.
I know what I'm supposed to do from here, old buddy.
Yeah.
Today is the day we're gonna make gasohol.
We don't know how long this gas shortage is gonna last.
[howard] lord have mercy.
I'm thinking right up in here, howard.
But, I'm pretty sure this is probably gonna happen again.
Same as it happened back in the '70s.
You reckon the mash is ready?
I think so.
So, we got to be prepared.
-Look at it right there. -Beautiful.
That's ready, man.
That's delicious.
That's it, mother's milk.
All right, let's get this thing set up.
All right.
The higher the alcohol level we get,
the less water content we have.
Which should be more efficient to running an engine.
This could be the start to something very explosive.
So we're gonna redistill this a few times,
separate the water from it
to try to get the alcohol up as high as possible,
man that does look good.
But now, we still gonna have to experiment.
There's different engines out there.
There's different engines and different vehicles.
So, we may have a mix it with gasoline
to get a happy medium that will go into everyone's.
Excuse me there, sir.
Make sure it don't turn over.
[howard] going from mash to gas.
[tim] mash gas.
[howard] mash gas.
[tim] now, we gotta light it up.
[howard] add a little fire to her.
[howard] you got her?
Oh, she's jumping.
[tim] I mean seriously, what we're doing is a good deed, man.
It's kind of crazy when people are trying
to get all this gas, you know.
Well, it's ridiculous, I've seen a woman
at a gas station, on tv though.
She's pouring in a bag, a plastic bag
filling up, trying to tie it.
When she goes to put it in her trunk,
not smart enough to understand that gasoline will eat through the plastic,
dumps gas on the back of her trunk.
-Anyway, this thing-- -then she gets another bag
and goes trying to fill that one up.
-Double bag it. -[laughs]
yeah, she gonna double bag.
I can't wait to run this in your truck.
About that,
what I do think we should consider first
is possibly running it in something a little smaller.
Something that is, you know...
-I don't wanna waste it. -Not a $25,000 vehicle.
Proof of small concept,
then we move to the big leagues.
I don't mind running it in mine.
But, I don't wanna be the first guy to do it.
Ain't your truck flex-fuel?
You're gonna flex my engine right out to dadgum.
Motor mounts.
I'm telling you man, I don't want this thing
to blow through the hood.
Look how it's running.
That's a perfect stream too man.
Put the jar there and gimme this bucket.
I want the first stuff to come out of there.
This is the first stuff right here.
Put that in the hydrometer.
Well, she's floating, but she's down there.
[tim] what you got?
[howard] I got 150 on the nose, son.
[tim] was a little bit higher proof than I expected.
So, I'm really happy with the results there.
I'm thinking if we can compound this and run it a number of times,
I think we can increase it up to 190 proof,
-so, give me that. -All right.
Just put that in, don't spill it.
-No, this is gold right here. -Yeah.
We're working with 150 proof moonshine.
That's highly flammable.
So, we cut down the risk a little bit by putting some water in it.
We're gonna put an open flame under this thing.
We don't wanna blow ourselves up.
All right, get the fire going.
[howard] fire is on.
You know, we're making a high proof moonshine.
You got to keep distilling it to keep eliminating water
and as you're distilling it, you're pulling that water out,
and the percentage of ethanol will keep increasing.
Look at that bubbling right down there.
Oh, she's right, she is right.
[tim] she's right there.
Come on here gasohol.
We'll make the world go round.
-Look, look, look. -[howard] oh-oh.
There you go, howard.
[howard] I didn't doubt you for a minute, son.
Let's see what we're working with.
She's coming up there, howard.
190.
I can't believe you've done this.
It actually come out pretty fast
because the system's already hot.
And the first jar that we pulled out of it is, like, 190,
I mean, you can't get no better than that.
All right, let's go.
[howard] to the dirt bike and beyond.
[upbeat country music playing]
I'll tell you what, boy.
This scenery never gets older, does it.
No, it don't.
Right here, this plot... [indistinct]
you know my man, jeremy
finally got this dangum wooden barrel stilt built.
That's heavier that any damn stilt I have ever built.
We ready to get into the woods,
fire this thing up and get this thing mashed in.
There's water right there bubba.
It is like to set us a pump right down there.
-Pump it right to us. -Yeah
yeah, we got down pipe,
why won't we just go up high like gravity do the work,
hopefully we get higher than what we're standing.
Oh, it's nice, ain't it.
That's so much I'm damn good looking, son.
Gimme that damn pipe, let's get up closer.
You know, this is gonna be pretty simple.
We're gonna use a couple of rows
old black pipe like the old timers used to.
Get it up as high as we can.
All we got to do is lay that black pipe
and pack a few rocks around it
and it's all downhill from my brother.
Got good pressure and everything to it.
Plenty of water going to the stilt site.
That's what it takes to make good liquor.
Now, we go get set up to heat up our water
and get mashed in.
You know, this is the site we're gonna use
this rocket elbow and the wooden barrel for stilt.
I'll tell you what, it's still kind of like up in the air.
It's like, we think, we've got a good design.
If it works, or we're thinking it's gonna work,
it's gonna make some damn good liquor,
but until we get some mash made
and put heat to it, we really don't know.
Just don't get too damn excited yet,
until we'll get it mashed in.
-Man I, -oh.
I ain't gonna kiss you yet.
All right, kiss me though.
I might.
-Kiss my butt maybe. -[laughs]
you know, this is the first time
me and jerry's putting all this stuff together.
We're both excited to see how this is gonna work,
but I'm kind of scared and iffy about it.
I don't wanna burn nothing up.
There we go.
Heating up 50 gallons water,
it takes a lot of heat to do this.
We'll get something to burn man.
About ready to run some.
Mother nature's provided us a lot of wood,
so, we're just gonna use that.
Fire it up son.
-You hear sound changing. -I do.
I believe we're burning.
Just barely smoking.
I know barely.
What do you think, jerry?
I think it's working,
it's just gonna take a minute to heat up, you know.
We've got a 40 something gallons worth of cold water,
it's gonna absorb a little bit of heat.
We got the rocket burner fired up.
It's actually, it's working.
It's just not working,
as quick as it should.
What do you think, jerry?
The damn thing should burn.
I'm little stumped, am little confused, you know,
the flame we got burning is pitiful.
At the rate it's burning right now,
it's gonna take months to heat up.
We just can't get enough fire son.
This rocket burner, it has to use heat for a draft.
Heat is coming up through our flue.
The cold water is sucking all the heat out of it.
So, it can't draft properly.
A wanna run liquor jerry. [bleep]
this is a big deal, you know, we've got to make some money.
Just a matter of finding out
what's gonna take it to make it run.
[howard] I got my minibike over here.
Let's try some of this ethanol in it.
Never thought I'd see the day moonshine
was going into a dangum gas tank.
We've created 190 proof ethanol.
I wanted to actually start it in howard's truck,
but he was kind of like, I don't wanna do that.
I wanna do a little research and development.
So, I offered my minibike.
And I think we'll just try a 100%
clear ethanol in it and see what happens.
All right, howard, I'm ready.
-You ready? -I want you to ride.
-You... -I'm gonna start it.
You want me to be test pilot on this.
Yeah, I am gonna start it.
Oh, hell tim.
Try one more time.
Oh, we got live action.
-All right. -Now.
All right, now if she will just go anywhere.
All right.
Well, that's working somewhat.
He cranked it up while he was still riding on it, look at it.
[howard] I am a master minibike driver.
I mean I'm throwing fire at this baby.
She just won't turn on for me.
We got nothing.
I keep an eye on, but he might roll up on his banks
come put his cornfield right here.
We've been waiting all night long
at henry for josh to show up,
and we ain't seen hide nor hair of it.
So, we decided to go out and look for him.
What do you reckon the odds are we finding josh.
Well, if he plays it right,
he'll get back and just watch.
He recognizes the truck
then he'll come up to us and
-we can pick him up hopefully. -Yeah.
Well, it's not any roads
between here and that mountain.
He didn't wait for us here.
He'd have to go over the mountain.
-Hmm. -He ain't getting near anything
and I think that we could possibly pick him up.
The way to the still site was laid out.
It's not but one way that he could possibly go.
And it's an old dirt road
just a few miles from where we were raided.
So, my plan is to ride up and down a dirt road a few times.
If josh just got to cross that road somewhere.
I don't know man I'm making another round or two at it.
If he didn't come out, I don't know what to do.
Henry knows every back road, every dirt road,
every darn goat path through the woods around here.
But really, all we can hope for now
is that we run across him.
This is not looking good, not looking good at all.
What do you think , tickle?
I hate giving up on him, but we've done about
got all that out of this stretch, we gonna get.
[henry] he got that natural instinct though.
If anybody can make it through the mountain then be him.
Maybe he will work his way to house.
-Hey hey. -Hey, look, look, look, look.
Look up, look it him.
-Son of a bitch. -Damn, it.
-There we go. -There we go
[laughs]
we got him.
Right we gave about give up on him.
-Give me some water. -Here, got one,
there you go.
Our last run through here.
Hell yes, I don't mind.
[laughs]
I don't think it's gonna work old buddy.
What do you mean, it ain't gonna work.
I'm not getting... It's all she got.
It didn't go too good, because we had straight ethanol.
So, right now, I'm gonna add a little bit more gas to it.
I'm looking at maybe 20% gas.
But right now,
we are learning how far can we stretch a gallon of gas.
All right, let's see.
-All right. -Ah-ha
I'll be right here, hold down the fort, tim.
Send it.
Lil' scoop for the old buddies.
You found it.
I'll be damn this actually works.
I mean, I started riding this thing,
I feel like I'm a teenager.
So, I'm thinking now is the time,
we need to get in another engine,
but another type vehicle,
maybe the tractor. The truck or something.
Something bigger.
All right, check out the old shot the right time.
I mean, it probably damn hit three gs.
Well, let's get to gas can.
Tim,
what are you doing with the old tractor?
I'm putting some pep in it chuck.
Me and howard have made
what they call gasohol.
It's 80% ethanol
and 20% gasoline, because we don't much gasoline.
We'll fire this dude up,
let's see, I think he's going go.
Do you wanna to try it?
Now tim, this tractor has been sitting around since last year
and it ain't moved.
-Let's gonna move. -I mean if it even start,
it'll be a miracle.
-Get out the way. -I'm staying.
Just in case we have something
-go boom. -You never know,
we might blow up.
[howard] look at that.
Started up.
Wow!
-I told you. -Did you see that.
[tim laughs]
god, that thing came out of the starting gate
like it was a kentucky derby.
It was roaring to go.
-Oh, look at. -Oh oh.
-Look at that, she's running. -She's going.
-Oh, hey.
Oh, hey. Let it go. Let it go.
Let, let it go look.
[tim] moonshiners were very resourceful.
We can turn anything into something that we can use.
We got the still, we got the grain,
we gotta know how, so when the gas line backed up.
Hey, you know what we did? We went and made some gasohol.
Tim, it's like a brand new tractor.
Just took 50 years off its life.
-I think I took 50 years out of you. -Ha ha.
[laughs]
I don't want that damn thing,
I hope this works.
If you've got enough heat
and enough air, the woods gotta burn.
We gotta be sure enough to figure it out.
-We ain't got all season to -I understand that.
To see if this gonna work.
It's gonna work.
Higher your flue pipe is the more you fires don't draw.
Got an extra five foot thick of pipe to add to our
stove pipe, that'd be 10 foot
of flue sticking out the top of the barrel
-that's gotta help. -Okay.
If that don't pull, then let's go into it.
Let's get her warmed up here.
All I got is some weird draft.
Look how get that burns.
There's no smoke coming out of that.
It's hot.
It's got to get to a certain temperature so
it can draw properly, I know that.
We're gonna have to keep pushing the wood to it
to get it hot enough to burn, and it should burn
I mean it's designed to do well.
So, we got a little bit of smoke,
come on get bad boy, get it.
There it goes.
Burning good now.
It's actually working.
I just think it needed that extra piece of pipe.
My god, she's pulling air now, ain't it burning.
-Cherry red baby. -All right.
What I'm doing here is I'm making an airflow grill.
I'm gonna fashion a little door to move back and forth
here this brick.
Then we can open up here,
give it a little bit of air or let it take a lot of air.
Let's pull the next butt off that man.
We got steam brother.
Hit the stain anytime you have to mount now sugar baby.
Oh my god, let's get the sugar in there.
For our first round, we're gonna do just
a simple traditional raw whiskey.
-Ready. -Pour too.
We got some good finely ground raw.
We're gonna let this steep in
get all the good flavors out of it.
Gonna be some damn good stuff, I am telling you that.
We are gonna make a lot of money of it
-a lot of money. -Right.
Cuz they're not gonna be expecting a the clear liquor.
No, they're not
everybody knows rye whiskey has been a charred dark liquor.
We're gonna give them that same product,
except it's gonna be clear.
Like good charred, rye taste to it.
Who in the hell would ever thought about aging
your damn liquor before you've ever run it.
I'll run it.
May made it, but we did, [laughs]
all right done.
I think everybody's gonna love it.
So, what's happening, is a sugar melted.
And now our rye is just kind of steeping this hot waters.
So, wooden barrel will keep it insulated.
So it's got longer to steep.
So, we're gonna let it cool and we'll pitch our yeast to it
and it'll sit anywhere from 8 to 12 days.
We're got her done buddy.
Yes sir.
Get out of here.
I can't wait to get my snort to that good rye whiskey.
Mash, good found a guinea pig on my own terse.
Let's just hope guinea ain't run out of nowhere.
Look behind you.
Look, what we got.
Good to see you brother.
Oh, man, I never been so happy to see you boys in all my life.
The fact that I got away was a freaking miracle.
These boys raided us
and I never even saw come until it was too late.
All I know was they come in
ran in other direction,
got up the woods, pretty good ways away from them.
Kinda started circling back around.
A little while after dark, when it got some pitch black,
I couldn't see where I was going anymore
just bedded down, I just kinda waited.
Once it lightened up, I got to that road bend.
I knew that if I hunker down at that road,
if you guys weren't in jail at some point
y'all be driving through there.
That's good move, good move.
What a miracle, I saw y'all when I did
if you hadn't to came when you did,
you'd had a piece of josh jerky laying out there
because I was about to dry it blow away.
Where the heck is brian at?
Man, brian's gone.
He took off last night heading home.
Well, I think
he's got a good idea about going home.
I think I need to go home for a little while.
You know, we don't have the fruits to mash or stills in,
make that brandy we're goanna make.
I have to go back home to get more fruit anyway.
Maybe I'll load up two stilts, me go back home set up
a still site lay low for a month or so.
We were thinking same thing,
you know, when you get hurdles like this,
we'll use the downsides.
Meant taking kids to my last night.
Maybe in a month or two, we come back,
like roll with it again.
Still throw everything in one pot,
or what are we gonna do?
We're all still are partners here.
You know, I don't like splitting up
the team we got here.
But we got to keep all our moonshiners safe
and making liquor.
And this looks like our best option.
As soon as he get down, get them loaded.
-You ready to roll? -Ready to get your stuff from down the road?
We really don't know who raided our still site?
If that was the law,
they probably already be here arresting us by now.
So, it could have been a rival shiner.
Somebody just really don't want us around here.
But one thing is for sure,
we can just tuck our tails and run.
We're gonna be cautious
and we're gonna move forward making moonshine,
because whether they want us here or not,
we're here to stay.
We all made it back and that's all that matters.
You just wait a couple of days you would wanna go somewhere.
It won't be long, you're goanna get tired of me.
I ain't got tired of you 12 years yet,
so I don't know, but it's gonna to happen, old buddy.
You have been with me 12 years.
Twelve years.
What you got, a calendar, you marking it up.
Yeah, I do. Somebody's got to.
I keep up our anniversary dates.
We have anniversary date?
-Yes, we do. -We do?
Oh my god.
October
2009.
Good idea, I did not know that.
I've been waiting on my gift every year,
ain't seen nothing yet.
I didn't know we had an anniversary.
Rye whiskey, rye whisky,
please don't whip me down.
Today, we got our mash we're hoping it's ready to go
because it's gonna be the first day on our new stilt
and I am super excited.
Let's check out bro.
The whole concept is, to mash inside this barrel
to create the flavor that charred wood barrel
and get it into our mash before we ever distill it off.
This was damn good cap on it on.
Oh my god.
All you can taste this rye
in that white oak barrel.
-Good I ain't it. -Wow.
We're are in business.
We're gonna be in big business.
That's absolutely amazing.
I mean it's just like you were to pop the cork
on good aged whiskey.
That's pretty done.
Couldn't ask for nothing better.
I knew when we heated it up real hot,
like it had to color that
with heating this barrel up
and letting it sit and ferment like this,
I knew that those colors
and that taste was gonna come through that wood.
Generally, when you mash it in a plastic barrel,
you're gonna have a milky looking color mash.
You get a good coffee top color,
you know, that barrel is doing its job on aging that mash.
We can get this flavor
through the end of that worm,
we're gonna have some of the best charred
unaged liquor a man can ever drink.
Let's fire this baby up boy.
We have made one hell of a mash
and if we get run off the other end,
it's gonna be even better.
We'll find out now if it's gonna work.
More above.
Tell you what, I know nobody's
ever ran on a wooden barrel before but, hey.
There's a first damn time for everything.
How's she looking back there?
It's burning baby.
Long here from here burn.
Hot damn hot that wood is already.
Just relax and open.
And all over good flavor.
-Goodies. -From another.
Yep boy.
This thing is heating up,
it's working like a charm so far.
It's just a little while
get to put our lips around this stuff
and see what it's all about.
Jerry, we got liquor brother.
Hell, yeah, it's some time, man.
-Look at that. -Look at that.
There she comes.
-Rye whiskey, son. -Oh yeah.
Let me put my cutting rod in it.
I tell you what man I am tickled to death
to see these first few drops coming out.
It's the highest, baby
we're catching the first drops of alcohol
from a damn wooden barrel
and me and jerry just two dudes doing it.
-Are you ready. -Ready.
Don't waste it.
Well, I don't think so it would take me whole.
I'm gonna tell you right down man
'cause a blind man, couldn't tell that
that no good aged charred damn liquor.
Taste that.
I think that's nice.
Let us sail along it brother.
That is, I mean clears a bail.
And it tastes like it's got that nose,
you can taste the rye.
It's perfect.
This liquor is like
none other than me and jerry has ever made.
The charred flavor is there.
That's what we're looking for.
The fact that it being clear is gonna blow people's mind.
I got my nose a little
the notes are there, the flavors there,
it's absolutely amazing
and it's clear, I mean, what more could you ask for?
If somebody don't like that, they don't like whiskey.
Yeah, you know, what man
this whole thing was jerry's idea.
You know building a still out with damn wooden barrel.
Oh, come on man.
One more down jerry.
But I stood behind him,
feels really good to accomplish this together.
We got seven and a half gallons of
good rye, aged, clear damn liquor.
Can't beat it son.
Let's just get these boxes and rock our asses
on out of here.
People's going nuts over
a barrel aged whiskey right now.
That's what they want to pull off the shelves.
That's what they want to buy under the table.
By infusing all these charred notes in a clear liquor,
me and jerry have something new,
something different, something unique.
Something that the customer really wants.
And I know a hell of a lot of customers are gonna like it.
-That's what's important. -Yeah boy.
-Man this sucks. -Yes, it does.
[henry] but you know,
I think it's better to stay out of jail.
That's a good thing that we wanted to run
this green lizard at a different stilt site.
Because our big stilt site
did not get compromised.
We will try to drag him out.
I reckon.
-Just kinda heavy. -That's a whole lot to do.
What to do is.
We don't have enough fruit to fill up
all of these pots to justify everybody being here running.
[grunts]
[henry] that's good.
All right, one more.
There's a lot of things that goes into being a moonshiner.
There's a lot of planning, there's a lot of hard work,
a lot of times that hard work,
just goes right down the drain.
You just got to adapt to the situation.
And as long as you don't get locked up
and put in jail, it's still a success.
-Yeah, yeah. -Yeah.
All right.
Well, I know I'm taking these two stilts,
but what are we gonna to do with the rest of the stills.
So, we gonna to move on to another location.
Well, situation where it is,
what do you think about taking two more out
and leave us four me, tickle and kenny.
We'll have two of them left,
we plan on getting somebody else,
maybe run those two.
So, we'll still have the same operation going.
Who's gonna get the other two stilts?
We got a couple guys we're talking to.
We'll have to furnish all the materials,
sugar, yeast, jugs,
everything it takes to set these guys up.
What profits is made.
They'll get a third, we'll get two thirds.
But the main thing is
that we're going to be having all this liquor coming from
coming from the other two to take care of our customers.
If we don't, they'll go somewhere else.
So, everything we're doing is still going to be
all for one and one for all.
We're still in operation.
We're just going in separate directions for a little while.
-For a little while. -Yeah.
-For a little while. -We want to come back.
All right, well, I'm down with it.
Let's roll with this.
I'm gonna take my stilts
and I'm gonna go to north carolina set them up.
And then when I come back,
I'll come back with fruit those stills
and we'll still have our operation.
Man glad to have these on the trailer,
but I'm really sad to be taking them out of here.
But you know, josh, I got
to look at it like this though.
We live in to shine another day,
and by breaking this setup right here,
we're gonna keep on making more liquor.